


What Steve Draws

by Whydoido



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Art, Bucky Barnes - Freeform, Feels, Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Stucky - Freeform, What am I doing, lovey dovey stuff, steve rogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-10-09 18:12:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10418160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whydoido/pseuds/Whydoido
Summary: "Rubbing his thumb against the soft, worn sides of the pages, Bucky urges to open the book and see what it is that Steve's poured so much time into."Bucky needs to know what it is that Steve draws in his notebook so often, and intends to find out. What will he find?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic, so please feel free to give any criticism in the comments.
> 
> Happy reading :D

Bucky brushes Steve's pencil against the paper of the Sketchbook of Freedom, imitating the light, controlled strokes that Steve himself makes. It's not going very well. He would like to blame it on the metal arm, or something like that, but the fact is that his drawings have always come out horrible. His eyes are burning, which isn't surprising considering that it's 2:00 am, but he can't not draw this. It's just too good.

Steve is slumped against the airport wall, his head hanging slack against his shoulder and his hair slightly ruffled. Both his legs are sprawled straight out, and his jacket lies in a heap next to him.

"I'm not gonna fall asleep," Steve had said at midnight as he was still jittery from the coffee.

"I'm not gonna fall asleep," Steve had slurred at 1:00 am as he sat up from his previously slouched over position of rest.

Steve put up a pretty good fight, and even went for a jog around the various little shops inside the airport to keep himself awake. But by 1:50, he was out cold, slouched against the glass wall that overlooked where all the airplanes were kept. Bucky, of course, saw this as the perfect opportunity to capture some memories.

Steve's drawing notebook has a navy blue canvas cover, with silver strips of metal across the spine to keep it from falling apart. It's remarkably thick and heavy, with paper that hasn't lost it's white, store bought glow. Bucky marvels at how paper doesn't yellow as quickly anymore. He was always aware of it, having seen paper develop as the winter soldier, but he never had the mental freedom to really think about it. Now, he has that liberty. Of all the dreams he'd had of the future, he never imagined eternally immaculate white paper.

Of course, the page Bucky has taken to defiling is now anything but immaculate. The light, calculated Steve strokes have now been abandoned for long dark Bucky lines, which, when put together, make a drawing of Steve that Bucky is quite proud of. A bit crude, maybe, but it captures the essence of the little jerk. Not that he's exactly little anymore, but he's still the same in so many ways. You would think that having an essentially different body would change the way that your head rests when you fall asleep, but it doesn't. At least not with Steve. For all the things that have changed in the world, Bucky is relieved that Steve wasn't one of them. But then again, at what cost...?

Bucky pushes the thought out of his head. It's too late (no, early) for this, and he doesn't want to start thinking about things like that so far away from home. An airport in Poland isn't the best location for a breakdown. Well, no place is a good location to have a breakdown. It's only been a month or so since he was last activated as the winter soldier.

Bucky looks his artwork over one more time, before deciding that there needs to be a bald eagle behind Steve. And then, after that, Bucky signs his name and almost closes the book.

Almost.

Bucky had opened up the book a random page near the end, where the sides visible from the outside were still relatively clean and not marked with stray pencil lines and lead smudges. But the rest of the book is, as Bucky is sure, completely filled up. Steve's been drawing in the journal for at least a year and a half, and has been caught doing so by Bucky quite frequently. So Bucky determines that the used pages must be chock full of sketches and drawings.

Rubbing his thumb against the soft, worn sides of the pages, Bucky urges to open the book and see what it is that Steve's poured so much time into. But of course, he won't do it. He couldn't open what's basically the door into Steve's psyche without asking.

Ashamed of even considering the idea of looking at the book, Bucky shoves it back in Steve's back pack and zips it up.

Just a minute later, a woman comes on to the PA.

"All passengers, seats 40-A through 35-D to board flight. Again, all passengers, seats 40-A through 35-D to board flight."

Steve jerks awake, blinking and disoriented. The wave of fear of not knowing where he is crosses his face for only an instant, but Bucky catches it nonetheless. Steve puts up such a good front that it's easy to forget how torn up he is over everything he's gone through.

Bucky grins. "Looks like you fell asleep," he says.

"Well, I fought a good fight," Steve says, rubbing his face. Bucky gets up from his chair and helps Steve to his feet. They collect their bags, and Steve puts on his jacket and slings on his backpack without investigating it too scrupulously.

Bucky grabs Steve's Backpack strap and pulls him in. Steve, still slightly bleary, doesn't have much of a reaction except a pink tinge around his cheeks and a slight widening of his eyes. Bucky grins at Steve's flustered expression and thrusts his hips against Steve. "I know you can put up more a fight than that, Jerk," Buck lowly murders in Steve's ear.

"Buck, not now," Steve says, though he's trying not to grin. "We gotta board the plane. And people could see us."

"We're in Poland, Steve," Bucky says and they walk up, shoulder to shoulder, to the boarding desk. "And it's 2:00 am. No one will see us." But Bucky knows that he's wrong. There are always people watching, people spying, cameras recording. They are never entirely safe unless they are in the Avengers Tower. But Bucky becomes somewhat irrational when he doesn't get enough sleep, so he still tries to hold Steve's hand. Steve, to Bucky's surprise (though it's always a surprise that Steve puts up with him at all) firmly grabs Bucky's hand back, though they are walking so closely together that their hands are almost hidden by their many layers of clothes.

Steve continues to look straight ahead for a few moments before meeting Bucky's gaze. Steve's eyes always threaten to make Bucky collapse, they are so loving and genuine. Usually focused and serious, they always take on a more gentle look with Bucky. But there is always, always an underlying sadness that rarely goes away. And right now, at 2:00 am, exhaustion only brings out that sadness.

Steve looks away.

The world bent over backwards so that they would have another chance, in a more dangerous but more accepting time, so they could be together. So Bucky will do everything he can to make sure that this person who he so deeply loves is alright and understood. Maybe Bucky can never chase away Steve's demons (though he'll never stop trying), but he will always try to understand them. After everything Steve has done for him, it's the least Bucky can do.

Therefore, it's the least Bucky can do to ask what's in that notebook.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky and Steve file into the plane along with the rest of the passengers. The plane's interior is rather shoddy, with cramped rows and seats with such horrible fabric patterns that even Bucky thinks they are outdated. Despite the plane's claustrophobic construction and design, the lack of passengers makes it bearable.

"This is your first time riding a commercial airline, right?" Steve asks.

"Yeah," Bucky says. "It seems like every time we have to get somewhere we have to take a bullet proof helicopter."

"Well, the bulletproof part isn't necessarily a bad thing, considering the usual circumstances."

"I guess so," Bucky says, with a tinge of irritation in his voice as they shove their backpacks into the upper compartment and take their seats.

Steve raises an eyebrow. "Do you want the exterior of our aircrafts to be penetrable?" He asks.

Bucky waits until they are seated in their two person row to answer so that they won't be overheard by anyone who can speak English. "Of course not. It's just strange to think that this is what we have to do. The dangers in our life are so great that we can barely ride a regular airplane." Bucky shakes his head and looks at Steve.

Steve knows what Bucky's been through- sure, he may never know what it's was like (what it's still like), or the details of all the people Bucky's killed, but at least he that it happened at all. Bucky's in the dark about what Steve's been through.

Every time Bucky tries to ask about it, Steve manages to swerve the conversation in another direction. Bucky never presses for the information- he doesn't have that kind of right. He should never ask anything of Steve, especially after everything he's done for him. But it isn't as if anyone else ever asks. It's all red, white and blue bravery and strength. The suit. The shield. The meaning. Never the actual man.

It's just like back during the war. Three cheers for _Captain America_ , and not a whisper for Steve.

Steve doesn't give a reply as he buckles his seatbelt. Bucky doesn't press for one. Steve looks straight ahead at the back of the next row's seat. Bucky can't help but gaze at Steve's face in apprehension. His exhaustion isn't just from staying up until 1:50 am; it's something far deeper. It seeps from his pores, and swims in his eyes. Steve replies, with a certain heaviness in his voice, "But having to deal with those dangers is better than the alternative. It's worth it if it means we prevent and escape that alternative."

Bucky's breathe hitches. What does he mean? "What alternative?"

Steve looks at Bucky, and Bucky feels the gravity of Steve's emotions smother him, pushing in his chest and scraping out his breathes.

"I mean not being able to do anything to help the world. Having to stand back, and watch as things unravel into everything they shouldn't be."

Maybe Bucky's wrong. Maybe Steve doesn't have any reservations about what he does. He always had possessed the selfless urge to help others.

Steve's chest rises with an inhaled breath of... _nervousness_? "I also mean loosing the chance to live my life with you."

Bucky reels. _I mean loosing my chance to live my life with you?_ Bucky knows that Steve has feelings for him, but in this moment, on this shitty plane, it feels more real and profound than ever before.

"Steve..." Bucky says. His head is spinning. "Steve, I want you to show me your drawing journal."

Steve looks taken aback. "My blue one?

"The Sketchbook of Freedom. You know the one."

Steve seems to come to some kind of internal understanding. He unbuckles his seatbelt and stands up in the tiny row.

"Excuse me, sir," a flight attendant says in polish, walking over to Steve as he opens the upper compartment. "You need to sit down. The plane is about to lift off."

"I know, but it's- it's important," Steve replies in the same language as he continues to swiftly take his backpack out of the compartment.

 _Is he upset that I asked him?_ Bucky thinks. _He seems distressed. God, what's wrong with me. I shouldn't have asked.  
_

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but it really is quite important," Bucky stalls. "We know that we are clogging up the aisle, and we're not buckled in, and that- oh, never mind, we've got what we needed."

Steve flashes the lady a brilliant smile as he scoots back into his row. Bucky smiles, much less naturally, and waves her away. She gives them an exasperated look and walks away.

Steve puts his seatbelt back on and exhales as he holds the Sketchbook of Freedom front side up.

"I understand if you don't want to show me," Bucky says."I mean, I know it's a private thing, and I know I don't have the right to see it, so don't think that I'm pressing you to do this. I just had to ask."

Steve lets out a strained laugh. "I was going to show you anyway, you know. I just wanted to wait until the right time."

At that moment, the lights in the plane go out for the passengers attempting to sleep, and Bucky and Steve are light only by their personal lights mounted in the seats of the row in front of them. Steve adjusts the position of his bulb so that the yellow light shines on the Sketchbook, and Bucky does likewise.

"Are you sure you feel comfortable doing this?" Bucky asks.

Steve looks at Bucky. "I'm sure."

And just like that, Steve opens the sketchbook. Bucky cranes to get a better look. The first page has nothing but Steve's name and a date from about a year ago on it, written in Steve's long yet blocky handwriting.

"That's when you started drawing in it?" Bucky asks.

"Yeah," Steve says, knowing what Bucky's referring to. "I haven't had as much time to draw as I would like, with the whole trying to save the world and preserve liberty thing."

Bucky has always thought it strange that Steve had the same sketchbook for so long, especially considering how fast he used to go through them back before they both supposedly died.

As Bucky gingerly turns over the first page, his eyes go wide. Not drawing as much hasn't done a thing to Steve's skill, as evidenced by the masterpiece before him. It's a city street, a New York street, and it takes up two pages of the notebook. Bucky finds himself feeling as though he were really looking at the sunlight reflecting off the glassy building and cars. And then he realizes that the cars are crushed, and that parts of the buildings are in ruins. There are a few people scattered dead throughout the scene, and dozens of other running in different directions.

"What is this?" Bucky asks.

"The serum they gave me improved my memory so that I'm able to remember every detail of my experiences. I can usually control it so that I don't end up muddling my mind with things I don't need to remember, like how many steps it took for me to get from my seat to the plane, but other times I don't mean to remember the things I see. They end up burned into my head. So drawing them is kind of like a way for me to get closure on the memories."

"Is this from when Loki attacked New York?"

Steve nods his head. "So many people died, Buck. I just..." he doesn't go on. He instead turns the next page for Steve.

It's Peggy, with her dark hair curled and half pulled up with pins. And then it's Tony tinkering with mechanics Bucky knows Steve doesn't fully understand at his work bench. And then it's Clint sleeping on a couch as Natasha stealthily places chips (Bucky thinks they're called Doritos) all over him, her face contorted into a strange shape from trying not to burst into laughter. Bucky grins. Not everything Steve knows is dark.

Bucky takes the Sketchbook of Freedom from Steve's lap to look at the sketches more closely. Bucky pretends not to notice that Steve turns red as Bucky turns the next page.

The drawing is of him. It's of Bucky. Back when he still had his short hair and the uniform of an American soldier. He's in an ally, with his head tilted up and his eyes directed downward.

"You... you drew me?" Bucky asks.

"Well, yeah," Steve says.

Bucky doesn't say anything. So Steve drew him once. No big deal.

Bucky flips to the next page. This time it's him, nude except for a towel wrapped around his waist, shaving in front of the mirror of their old flat's bathroom. He's bathed in sunlight.

"I tried not to draw you at first, since I didn't want to fill _another_ notebook with drawings of my dead friend, but that effort ended pretty quickly."

Bucky's vision starts blurring. _Another_ notebook? Does that mean that Steve has already filled up a notebook of drawings with him?

"Why?" Bucky asks. "I mean why me?"

"I never forgot you," Steve says. "Even though I didn't have the serum in me to enhance my memory when we were still sharing a flat, I never forgot those days we spent together, or the way you looked with short hair in an undershirt."

Bucky continues to flip through the notebook, finding more pictures of destruction, Steve's old and new friends, and himself. He's touched that Steve would draw him, of all people. Steve obviously cares about him, since he's gone against so much for his protection, but to think that Steve cared about him on this deep a level before he had reappeared as the winter soldier is almost too much.

Almost.

What is actually too much is the fact that Steve feels the need to draw pictures of dead people. Every time it seems as though Steve got himself together for a few pages, there is another horrific picture of someone either writhing in pain or half dead. Bucky has to stop when he sees the picture of a boy trapped under a flipped car in what Bucky assumes must be the incident in Nigeria.

"So this is what you think about?" Bucky asks, gesturing to the picture.

"There's not much else _too_ think about, Buck," Steve says. "Other than you and the rest of the people we know."

Bucky sighs and closes the book even though he's only gotten about halfway through. He hands the Sketchbook of Freedom back to Steve.

"What's wrong?"

"Steve," Bucky begins, angrily trying to find his words, "It just- it makes me crazy when I look at what the world has done to you. Don't you remember the drawing notebook you had back at the flat that you filled three of with pictures of our neighbors potted flowers? How you made it a goal to draw every stray cat on our block? And now, it's all this misery and death. You don't deserve this. God, no one deserves this."

"You're kidding, right?" Steve asks.

"What?"

"You have to be kidding. You must know how happy I am, right?"

"Well it doesn't seem like you're too happy," Bucky says as his voice raises to a shout. A few of the people around them give them annoyed looks, and are obviously irritated at having their attempts at sleep thwarted.

"Sorry," Bucky mumbles.

Steve shakes his head. "Bucky, I'm probably the happiest person in the world." Steve takes Bucky' hands and looks him in the eyes. "I have gone through a lot. Well, caused a lot too. But everything that's happened has led up to this. Me and you on plane to a place where we can be together. That _never_ could have happened during the forties. But it's happening now. And I'd go back into any super soldier oven, wage any war, and battle any space God to make sure that it _keeps_ happening now, because I love you more than I'm afraid of any pain."

Bucky becomes rather dazed at hearing Steve's speech, and doesn't say anything for a moment.

_There's no way I mean this much to him. Not after all the trouble I've caused._

"What was that last part, Steve?"

"I said that I love you, Bucky."

Bucky blinks a few times.

"Bucky, are you okay?" Steve asks after another few moments of tense silence. He squeezes Bucky's hands.

"Your hands are kind of warm, and you look a little red. Are you sick?"

Bucky rips his hands out of Steve's, grabs the surprised blondie's face, and crashes his lips into Steve's. Steve is at first motionless in response to Bucky's attempts to violently make out with him, but soon begins to reciprocate. Bucky's mix of sleep deprivation and sudden sexual arousal prevents his from thinking about anything other than sucking on Steve's warm, sweetly wet lips.

_What the hell am I doing?_

Bucky is flicking his tongue into Steve's mouth when Steve pushes Bucky away.

Steve awkwardly laughs. His face is beat red. "Bucky, I really don't think we should just start making out here."

"What? Why?" Bucky asks.

"We can't just make out on a plane, Bucky."

"I would hardly call that making out."

 _Well, in retrospect, It_ was _more like shoving my tongue down his throat than flicking it into his mouth._

"Just... lets just sleep through the rest of the plane ride, okay? I took that nap in the airport, and _I'm_ exhausted. I can't imagine how you must feel. We can talk about the rest of this when we land." Steve says. He switches his light off. The conversation is over.

Bucky lets out a breathe that seems to contain all the emotions he's felt in the past hour. He shouldn't have pushed it like that. The few people who are awake are giving them funny looks, so it must have been a pretty loud kiss.

But then again, Steve did say that he loved him more than he was afraid of any pain. Surely that meant something.

"Yeah you're right. I am pretty tired," Bucky says as he nestles back into his seat and turns off his own light.

A few minutes of quiet pass by between the two of them, with nothing by the hum of the airplane to interrupt their thoughts. Bucky's mind races with the meaning of the recent events. Steve's words indicated that he returned Bucky's feelings, but Bucky has a difficult time believing that. There's just no way.

"I meant what I said, you know," Steve says. "I can't believe I finally got it out." His voice is low and gravelly. His eyes are half shut, and from what Bucky can see in the dim light of other people's seat lights, Steve seems to be grinning slightly.

"Hm?" Bucky asks.

"When I said that I loved you. I meant it."

Bucky giddily gruns through all of his exhaustion. He'd imagined the moment when Steve confessed his love for him countless times before, each time more theatrical and absurd than the last. But that was when it had been so impossible that it was a fantasy, nothing more, and any attempt to make it more realistic felt too sad to think about.  
Now, on this dingy plane, it's seems like this is the only way it could have happened.

"Steve," Bucky says, "I love you too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry it took so long for me to finish this! Life keeps me pretty busy haha!
> 
> Also, I've realized that this seems a bit all over the place, and I'd like to improve that aspect of my writing. I didn't have a very strict plan for this fan fiction, so that's probably why it's so convoluted.
> 
> If you have any tips, comment below! Thanks for reading! :D


End file.
